Wine sale has been growing 25% a year but wineries are facing shortage of the raw material as farmers prefer growing table grapes to wine variety.PUNE: As wineconsumption shows steady growth in India, especially at the entry level, wineries are trying to woo grape farmers with better prices for their produce.

Wineries are also citing the persistent threat of unseasonal rains, which damage the fragile table grapes more than the almost-wild wine grapes, to convince growers about shifting to wine grapes, at least in part.

After 5-6 years of recession, wine sale has been growing at 20-25 per cent a year. But wine makers are facing the shortage of the most important raw material, grapes.

Earlier, farmers had uprooted wine grapes from more than 6,000 acres as wineries could not crush them. Also, table grapes were getting good price in the domestic as well as international markets. Farmers exporting best quality grapes could earn a few lakh rupees per acre. As a result, wineries had been finding it tough to convince farmers to shift to wine grapes.

However, after the unseasonal rains and hailstorm in February and March this year damaged table grapes, wineries across Maharashtra came forward to crush the damaged grapes to produce the so-called port wines. "Now there is a shortage of grapes and they cannot be grown overnight," said Jagdish Holkar, former chairman of the Indian Grape Processing Board. After planting, it takes three years for the vine to bear fruit, he added.

One of the factors that led to the growth of wine industry is the introduction of entry-level wines. "Wines at the price points of Rs 200 a Rs 120 to bottle constitute about 65 per cent of the total sales," said Holkar.

Sula Vineyards, which already has 2,500 acres under contract farming ­ 90 per cent of that is in Maharashtra, plans to add another 500 acres this year."We have been adding about 200 acres every year. This year, we want to add another 500 acres," said Neeraj Agarwal, vice president-operations. "We are trying to tell the farmers the benefit of bringing at least a part of their land under wine grapes as there is less risk involved in it. Table grapes are more susceptible to damage by rains," said Agarwal. "We have increased the prices of wine grapes 10 per cent for the 2016 crushing season over the previous year. The prices will now be in the range of Rs 35-65 a kg," he added.

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